01.3.4.2. New Testament - Part 2

Aion-Aionios - Usage - New Testament - Part 2 A COMMON OBJECTION NOTICED

"Then eternal life is not endless, for the same Greek adjective qualifies life and punishment." This does not follow, for the word is used in Greek in different senses in the same sentence, as Habakkuk 3:6 : "And the everlasting mountains were scattered -- his ways are everlasting". Suppose we apply the popular argument here. The mountains and God must be of equal duration, for the same word is applied to both. Both are temporal or both are endless. But the mountains are expressly stated to be temporal -- they "were scattered," -- therefore God is not eternal. Or God is eternal and therefore the mountains must be. But they cannot be, for they were scattered. The argument does not hold water. The aiónion mountains are all to be destroyed. Hence the word may denote both limited and unlimited duration in the same passage, the different meanings to be determined by the subject treated.

But it may be said that this phrase "everlasting" or "eternal life" does not usually denote endless existence, but the life of the gospel, spiritual life, the Christian life, regardless of its duration. In more than fifty of the seventy-two times that the adjective occurs in the New Testament, it describes life. What is eternal life? Let the Scriptures answer. John 3:36 : "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John 5:24 : "He that believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but IS PASSED from death unto life." John 6:47; John 6:54 : "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." John 17:3 : "THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Eternal life is the life of the gospel. Its duration depends on the possessor’s fidelity. It is no less the aiónion life, if one abandon it in a month after acquiring it. It consists in knowing, loving and serving God. It is the Christian life, regardless of its duration. How often the good fall from grace. Believing, they have the aiónion life, but they lose it by apostasy. Notoriously it is not, in thousands of cases, endless. The life is of an indefinite length, so that the usage of the adjective in the New Testament is altogether in favor of giving the word the sense of limited duration. Hence Jesus does not say "he that believeth shall enjoy endless happiness," but "he hath everlasting life," and "is passed from death unto life."

It scarcely need here be proved that the aiónion life can be acquired and lost. Hebrews 6:4-6 : "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." A life that can thus be lost is not intrinsically endless.

That the adjective is thus consistently used to denote indefinite duration will appear from several illustrations, some of which we have already given. 2 Corinthians 4:17 : "A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," or, as the original reads, "exceeding an aiónion weight of glory excessively." Now eternal, endless cannot be exceeded, but aiónion can be, therefore aiónion is not eternal. Again, Revelation 14:6 : "The everlasting gospel." The gospel is good news. When all shall have learned its truths it will no longer be news. There will be no such thing as gospel extant. Faith will be fruition, hope lost in sight, and the aiónion gospel, like the aiónion covenant of the elder dispensation, will be abrogated, not destroyed, but fulfilled and passed away. Again, 2 Peter 1:11 : "The everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." This kingdom is to be dissolved. Jesus is to surrender his dominion. 1 Corinthians 15:24 : "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God even the Father," etc. The everlasting kingdom of Christ will end.

The word may mean endless when applied to life, and not when applied to punishment, even in the same sentence, though we think duration is not considered so much as the intensity of joy or the sorrow in either case.

WORDS TEACHING ENDLESS DURATION

But the Blessed Life has not been left dependent on so equivocal a word. The soul’s immortal and happy existence is taught in the New Testament, by words that in the Bible are never applied to anything that is of limited duration. They are applied to God and the soul’s happy existence only. These words are akataluton, imperishable; amarantos and amarantinos, unfading; aphtharto, immortal, incorruptible; and athanasian, immortality. Let us quote some of the passages in which these words occur:

Hebrews 7:15-16 : "And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest, who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless (akatalutos, imperishable) life."

1 Peter 1:3-4 : "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, (aphtharton,) and undefiled, and that fadeth not (amaranton) away."

1 Peter 5:4 : "And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not (amarantinos) away."

1 Timothy 1:17 : "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, (aphtharto,) invisible, the only wise god, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen."

Romans 1:23 "And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."

1 Corinthians 9:25 : "Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible."

1 Corinthians 15:51-54 : "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, (aphthartoi,) and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, (aphtharsian,) and this mortal must put on immortality (athanasian). So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, (aphtharsian,) and this mortal shall have put on immortality, (athanasian,) then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."

Romans 2:7 : "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, (aphtharsia,) eternal life."

1 Corinthians 15:42 : "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption (aphtharsia)." See also 1 Corinthians 15:50.

2 Timothy 1:10 : "Who brought life and immortality (aphtharsian) to light, through the gospel."

1 Timothy 6:16 : "Who only hath immortality (athanasian)."

Now these words are applied to God and the soul’s happiness. They are words that in the Bible are never applied to punishment, or to anything perishable. They would have been affixed to punishment had the Bible intended to teach endless punishment. And certainly they show the error of those who declare that the indefinite word aiónion is all the word, or the strongest word in the Bible declarative of the endlessness of the life beyond the grave. A little more study of the subject would prevent such reckless statements and would show that the happy, endless life does not depend at all on the pet word of the partialist critics.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY’S VIEWS

It will be of interest to give here the views of Thomas De Quincey, one of the most accurate students of language, and profoundest reasoners and thinkers among English scholars. He states the facts of the case with almost perfect accuracy: "I used to be annoyed and irritated by the false interpretation given to the Greek word aión, and given necessarily, therefore, to the Greek adjective aiónios as its immediate derivative. It was not so much the falsehood of this interpretation, as the narrowness of that falsehood that disturbed me. ... That reason which gives to this word aiónion what I do not scruple to call a dreadful importance, is the same reason, and no other, which prompted the dishonesty concerned in the ordinary interpretation of this word. The word happened to connect itself -- but that was no practical concern of mine, -- me it had not biased in the one direction, nor should it have biased any just critic in the counter direction -- happened, I say, to connect itself with the ancient dispute upon the duration of future punishment. What was meant by the aiónion punishments of the next world? Was the proper sense of the word eternal, or was it not? ... That argument runs thus -- that the ordinary construction of the word aiónion, as equivalent to everlasting, could not possibly be given up, when associated with penal misery, because in that case, and by the very same act, the idea of eternity must be abandoned as applicable to the counter bliss of paradise. Torment and blessedness, it was argued, punishment and beatification stood upon the same level; the same word it was, the word aiónion, which qualified the duration of either; and if eternity, in the most rigorous acceptation, fell away from the one idea, it must equally fall away from the other. Well, be it so. But that would not settle the question. It might be very painful to renounce a long cherished anticipation, but the necessity of doing so could not be received as a sufficient reason for adhering to the old unconditional use of the word aiónion. The argument is -- that we must retain the old sense of eternal, because else we lose upon one scale what we had gained upon the other. But what then would be the reasonable man’s retort? We are not to accept or to reject a new construction (if otherwise the more colorable), of the word aiónion, simply because the consequences might seem such, as, upon the whole, to displease us. We may gain nothing; for by the new interpretation our loss may balance our gain, and we may prefer the old arrangement. But how monstrous is all this! We are not summoned as to a choice of two different arrangements that may suit different tastes, but to a grave question as to what is the sense and operation of the word aiónion. ... Meantime all this speculation, first and last, is pure nonsense. Aiónian does not mean eternal, neither does it mean of limited duration. Nor would the unsettling of aiónian in its old use, as applied to punishment, to torment, to misery, etc., carry with it any necessary unsettling of the idea in its application to the beatitudes of Paradise.

What is an aión? The duration or cycle of existence which belongs to any object, not individually of itself, but universally, in right of its genius. ... Man has a certain aiónian life; possibly ranging somewhere about the period of seventy years assigned in the Psalms. ... The period would in that case represent the "aión" of the individual Tellurian; but the "aión" of the Tellurian race would probably amount to many millions of our earthly years, and it would remain an unfathomable mystery, deriving no light at all from the septuagenarian "aión" of the individual; though between the two aións I have no doubt that some secret link of connection does and must subsist, however undiscoverable by human sagacity. ...

This only is discoverable, as a general tendency, that the aión, or generic period of evil is constantly towards a fugitive duration. The aión, it is alleged, must always express the same idea, whatever that may be; if it is less than eternity for the evil cases, then it must be less for the good ones. Doubtless the idea of an aión is in one sense always uniform, always the same, -- viz., as a tenth or a twelfth is always the same. Arithmetic could not exist if any caprice or variation affected their ideas -- a tenth is always more than an eleventh, always less than a ninth. But this uniformity of ratio and proportion does not hinder but that a tenth may now represent a guinea, and the next moment represent a thousand guineas. The exact amount of the duration expressed by an aión depends altogether upon the particular subject which yields the aión. It is, as I have said, a radix, and like an algebraic square-root or cube-root, though governed by the most rigorous laws of limitation, it must vary in obedience to the nature of the particular subject whose radix it forms."

De Quincey’s conclusions are:

A. "That man who allows himself to infer the eternity of evil from the counter eternity of good, builds upon the mistake of assigning a stationary and mechanic value to the idea of an aión, whereas the very purpose of Scripture in using the word was to evade such a value. The word is always varying for the very purpose of keeping if faithful to a spiritual identity. The period or duration of every object would be an essentially variable quantity, were it not mysteriously commensurate to the inner nature of that object as laid open to the eyes of God. And thus it happens, that everything in the world possibly without a solitary exception, has its own separate aión; how many entities, so many aións."

B. "But if it be an excess of blindness which can overlook the aiónian differences amongst even neutral entities, much deeper is that blindness which overlooks the separate tendencies of things evil and things good. Naturally, all evil is fugitive and allied to death."

C. "I, separately, speaking for myself only, profoundly believe that the Scriptures ascribe absolute and metaphysical eternity to one sole being -- viz., God; and derivatively to all others according to the interest which they can plead in God’s favor. Having anchorage in God, innumerable entities may possibly be admitted to a participation in divine aión. But what interest in the favor of God can belong to falsehood, to malignity, to impurity? To invest them with aiónian privileges, is, in effect, and by its results, to distrust and to insult the Deity. Evil would not be evil, if it had that power of self-subsistence which is imparted to it in supposing its aiónian life to be co-eternal with that which crowns and glorifies the good." (Theological Essays, Vol.1, pp. 143-162.)

REV. E. H. SEARS

Says Edmund H. Sears: "The passage has often been regarded as if the chief thing to be considered was the duration of the punishment of the unrighteous, over against the duration of the life of the righteous, and that since both are described by the same word, they are of like duration. That would undoubtedly be so if mere duration or extension by time were expressed at all, or any way involved in the contrast. But that, as I should interpret, is not the meaning of the original word. The element of time, as we measure things, does not enter into it at all. Not duration, but quality [editor’s emphasis], is the chief thing involved in this word rendered ’eternal.’ ... The word aión and its derivatives, rendered ’eternal’ and ’everlasting,’ describe an economy complete in itself, and the duration must depend on the nature of the economy. ... The New Testament, if it reveals anything, reveals the aión -- the dispensation that lies next to this, and gathers into it the momentous results of our probation in time. But what lies beyond that in the cycles of a coming eternity, I do not believe has been revealed to the highest angel. Think of that endless Beyond! If every atom of the globe were counted off, and every atom stood for a million years, still we have not approached a conception of endless duration. And yet sinful and fallible men affirm that their fellow sinners are to be given over to indescribable agonies through those millions of years thus repeated, and even then the clocks of eternity have only struck the morning hour! that the hells of pent-up anguish are to streak eternity with blood in lines parallel forever with the being of God! If Gabriel should come and tell us that, we should have a right to believe that the history of the infinite future infolded in the bosom of God, had not been given to Gabriel!" (Sermons pp. 99-102.)

DID JESUS EMPLOY THE POPULAR PHRASEOLOGY?

It is often remarked that as, according to Josephus, the Jews in our Savior’s times believed in endless punishment, Jesus must have taught the same doctrine, as "he employed the terms the Jews used." But this is not true, as we have shown. Christ and his apostles did not employ the phraseology that the Jews used to describe this doctrine. As we have shown, Philo used athanaton and ateleuteton meaning immortal, and interminable. He says, zoe apothneskonta aeikai tropon tina thanaton athanaton upomeinon kai ateleuteton, "to live always dying, and to undergo an immortal and interminable death" (Univ. Expositor, vol. 3, p. 446). He also employs aidion, but not aiónion (Univ. Expositor. vol. 3, p. 437). Josephus says: "They, the Pharisees, believe the souls of the bad are allotted aidios eirgmos, to an eternal prison, and punished with adialeiptos timoria, eternal retribution." In describing the doctrine of the Essenes, Josephus says they believe "the souls of the bad are sent to a dark and tempestuous cavern, full of adialeiptos timoria, incessant punishment." But the phraseology of Jesus and the apostles is olethros aiónios or aióniou kriseos "eternal chastisement," or "eternal condemnation." The Jews contemporary with Jesus call retribution aidios, or adialeiptos timoria, while the Savior calls it aiónios krisis, or kolasis aiónios, and the apostles olethros aiónios, everlasting destruction; and puros aiónios, eternal fire. Had Jesus and his apostles used the terms employed by the Jews to whom they spake, we should be compelled to admit that they taught the popular doctrine. See this point further elucidated at the end of this volume on the word Aidios.

"To live always dying and undergo an endless death," is the language of "orthodox" pulpits, and of the Greek Jews, but our Savior and his apostles carefully avoided such horrible blasphemy as to charge God with being the author of so diabolical a cruelty.

Says a learned scholar: "Aiónios is a word of sparing occurrence among ancient classical Greek writers; nor is it by any means the common term employed by them to signify eternal. On the contrary, they much more frequently make use of aidios, aei ón, or some similar mode of speech, for this purpose. ... To me it appears that the Seventy, by choosing aiónios to represent olam, testify that they did not understand the Hebrew word to signify eternal. Had they so understood it, they would certainly have translated it by some more decisive word; some term, which, like aidios is more commonly employed in Greek, to signify that which has neither beginning nor end." (Christian Examiner. Sept. 1830, pp. 25, 26.)

Let us now allude to the other texts in the New Testament in which the word is applied to punishment.

"NEVER FORGIVENESS -- ETERNAL DAMNATION"

Matthew 12:32 : "Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." Parallel passages, Mark 3:29 : "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never (aióna) forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal (aiónion) damnation"; Luke 12:10 : "And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven." Literally, "neither in this age nor the coming," that is, neither in the Mosaic, nor the Christian age or dispensation. but then, these ages will both end, and in the dispensation of the fullness of times, or ages, all are to be redeemed (Ephesians 1:10). Mark 3:29 is the same as Matthew 12:32. The Greek differs slightly, and is rendered literally, "has not forgiveness to the age, but is liable to age-lasting judgment." The thought of the Savior is, that those who should attribute his good deeds to an evil spirit would be so hardened that his religion would have difficulty in affecting them. Endless damnation is not thought of, and cannot be extorted from the language.

In the New Testament the "end of the age," and "ages" is a common expression, referring to what has now passed (see Colossians 1:26; Hebrews 9:26; Matthew 13:39-40; Matthew 13:49; Matthew 24:3). Says Locke: "The nation of the Jews were the kingdom and people of God whilst the law stood. And this kingdom of God, under the Mosaic constitution was called aión outos, this age, or as it is commonly translated, this world. But the kingdom of God was to be under the Messiah, wherein the economy and constitution of the Jewish church, and the nation itself, that in opposition to Christ adhered to it, was to be laid aside, is in the New Testament called aión mellon, the world or age to come." (Notes on Gal. i.)

Another writer adds: "Why the times under the law, were called kronoi aiónioi, we may find reason in their jubilees, which were aiónes, "secula," or "ages," by which all the time under the law, was measured; and so kronoi aiónioi is used (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2). And so aiónes are put for the times of the law, or the jubilees (Luke 1:70; Acts 3:21; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 1 Corinthians 10:11; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26; Hebrews 9:26). And so God is called the rock of aiónon, of ages (Isaiah 26:4), in the same sense that he is called the rock of Israel (Isaiah 30:29), i.e. the strength and support of the Jewish state; -- for it is of the Jews the prophet here speaks. So Exodus 21:6 : eis ton aióna signifies not as we translate it, "forever," but "to the jubilee;" which will appear if we compare Leviticus 25:39-41 and Exodus 21:2." (Burthog’s "Christianity, a Revealed Mystery," pp. 17, 18. Note on Romans 16:25.)

Pearce in his commentary, says "Rather, neither in this age, nor in the age to come: i.e., neither in this age when the law of Moses subsists, nor in that also, when the kingdom of heaven, which is at hand, shall succeed to it. The Greek aión, seems to signify age here, as it often does in the New Testament, (see Matthew 13:40; Matthew 24:3; Colossians 1:26; Ephesians 3:9; Ephesians 3:21) and according to its most proper signification. If this be so, then this age means the Jewish one, the age while their law subsisted and was in force; and the age to come (see Hebrews 6:5; Ephesians 2:7) means that under the Christian dispensation." (Notes on Matthew 12:31-32.

Wakefield observes: "Age, aióni; i.e., the Jewish dispensation which was then in being, or the Christian, which was going to be." (Com. on loco.)

Clarke: "Though I follow the common translation (Matthew 12:31-32), yet I am fully satisfied the meaning of the words is, neither in this dispensation, viz., the Jewish, nor in that which is to come, the Christian. Olam ha-bo, the world to come, is a constant phrase for the times of the Messiah, in the Jewish writers." (Idem.) See also Hammond, Rosenmuller, etc., (Paiges’s Selections). Take Hebrews 9:26, as an example: "For then must he (Christ) often have suffered since the foundation of the world (kosmos, literal world) but now once in the end of the world (aiónon, age) hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." What world was at its end when Christ appeared? Indubitably the Jewish age. The world or age to come (aión) must be the Christian dispensation, as in 1 Corinthians 10:11, where Paul says that upon him and his contemporaries "the ends of the world are come."

These passages state in strong language the heinous nature of the sin referred to. The age or world to come is not beyond the grave, but it is the Christian dispensation. It had a beginning eighteen centuries ago, and it will end when Jesus delivers the kingdom to God, the Father (1 Corinthians 15:1-58).

EVERLASTING FIRE

Matthew 18:8 : "Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands, or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire." Matthew 25:41 uses the same phraseology: "The everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." Also Jude 1:7 : "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

It is better to enter into the Christian life maimed, that is deprived of some social advantage comparable to an eye, foot, or hand, than to keep all worldly advantages, and suffer the penalty of rejecting Christ, typified by fire, is the meaning of Matthew 18:8; and Jude 1:7 teaches that Sodom and Gomorrah are an example of eternal fire. But that fire has expired. That the fire referred to is not endless is shown by the use of the term in the Bible. "God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29), but it is a "Refiner’s fire" (Malachi 3:2-3). It consumes the evil and refines away the dross of error and sin. This corroborates the meaning we have shown to belong to the word expressive of the fire’s duration. But whatever may be the purpose of the fire, it is not endless, it is aiónian. Benson well says: "The fire which consumed Sodom, etc., might be called eternal, as it burned till it had utterly consumed them, beyond the possibility of their being inhabited or rebuilt. But the word will have a yet more emphatical meaning, if (as several authors affirm) that fire continued to burn a long while." (Paige Com. Vol. vi: p. 398.) EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION

2 Thessalonians 1:9 : "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power."

Everlasting destruction, olethron aiónion, does not signify remediless ruin, but long banishment from God’s presence. This is what sin does for the soul. Olethros is not annihilation, but desolation. It is found but four times in the New Testament (1 Thessalonians 5:3; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Timothy 6:9). The passage in First Corinthians shows us how it is used: "deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." The destruction here is not final -- it is conditional to the saving of the spirit. Everlasting destruction is equivalent to prolonged desolation. THE BLACKNESS OF DARKNESS FOREVER

2 Peter 2:17 : "These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever." Jude 1:13 : "Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." "To whom is always reserved the blackness of darkness," would be a correct paraphrase of this language. Those referred to are trees that bear no fruit, clouds that yield no water, foaming waves, stars that give no light. Endless duration was not thought of by either Peter or Jude. Indefinite duration, ages, is the utmost meaning of eis aióna, which is spurious in 2 Peter 2:17, but genuine in Jude 1:13. The literal meaning is for an age. Eternity cannot be extorted from the phrase.

FOREVER AND EVER

Hebrews 6:2 : "The doctrine of the aionian (aiónion) judgment." We make no special explanation of this passage. Whether the judgment of that age or the age to come, the Christian, is meant, matters not. "The judgement of the age" is the full force of the phrase aionion judgment.

Revelation 14:11 : "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name." Revelation 19:3 : "And her smoke rose up forever and ever." Revelation 20:10 : "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever."

Attempts have been made to show that these [are - editor] reduplications, if no other forms of the word convey the idea of eternity. But the literal meaning of aiónas aiónon, in the first text above, is ages of ages, and of tous aiónas ton aiónon, in the other two, is the ages of the ages. It is thus rendered in the Emphatic Diaglot. It is perfectly manifest to the commonest mind that if one age is limited, no number can be unlimited. Ages of ages is an intense expression of long duration, and if the word aión should be eternity, "eternities of eternities" ought to be the translation, an expression too absurd to require comment. If aión means eternity, any number of reduplications would weaken it. But while ages of ages is proper enough, eternity of eternities would be ridiculous. On this phraseology Sir Isaac Newton says: "The ascending of the smoke of any burning thing forever and ever, is put for the continuation of a conquered people under the misery of perpetual subjection and slavery." (Daniel and Rev. London Ed. 1733, p. 18.) The thought of eternal duration was not in the mind of Jesus or his apostles in any of these texts, but long duration, to be determined by the subject.

THE SPIRITS IN PRISON

An illuminating side-light is thrown on this subject by commentators on 1 Peter 3:18-20, in which Christ is said to have "preached unto the spirits in prison." Alford says our Lord "did preach salvation in fact, to the disembodied spirits, etc." Tayler Lewis (Lange on Eccl., 130) -- "There was a work of Christ in Hades, he makes proclamation ’ekeruxen’ in Hades to those who are there in ward. This interpretation, which was almost universally adopted by the early Christian church, etc." Professor Huidekoper (Mission to the Underworld, pp. 51, 52) -- "In the second and third centuries every branch and division of Christians believed that Christ preached to the departed." Dietelmair (Historia Dogmatis de Descensu Christi ad Inferos, chs. iv and vi) says this doctrine "in omni coetu Christiano creditum." Why preach salvation to souls whose doom was fixed for eternity? And how could Christians believe in that doctrine and at the same time give the aionian words the meaning of eternal duration?

AION MEANS AN EON, ÆON or AGE

It is a pity that the noun (aión) has not always been rendered by the English word eon, or æon, and the adjective by eonian or aionion; then all confusion would have been avoided. Webster’s Unabridged, defines it as meaning a space or period of time, an era, epoch, dispensation, or cycle, etc. He also gives it the sense of eternity, but no one could have misunderstood, had it been thus rendered. Suppose our translation read "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the æon?" "The smoke of their torment shall ascend for æons of æons." "These shall go away into aionian chastisement, etc." The idea of eternity would not be found in the noun, nor of endless duration in the adjective, and the New Testament would be read as its authors intended.

Let the reader now recall the usage as we have presented it, and then reflect that all forms of the word are applied to punishment only fourteen times in the entire New Testament, and ask himself the question, Is it possible that so momentous a doctrine as this is only stated so small a number of times in divine revelation? If it has the sense of limited duration, this is consistent enough, for then it will be classed with the other terms that describe the Divine judgments. The fact that so many of those who speak or write never employ it at all, and that all of them together use it but fourteen times is a demonstration that He who has made known his will, and who would of all things have revealed so appalling a fate as endless woe, if he had it in preparation, has no such doom in store for immortal souls.

We now pass to corroborate these positions by consulting the views of those in the first centuries of the Christian Church, who obtained their opinions directly or indirectly from the apostles themselves.